Tag: boyfriend

Tell me what conversation you can have on Tinder, OkCupid, or any dating app that is going to tell you more than an in person meeting?

If you have established the person is not a serial killer through sharing social media or other such mediums, why must there be some made up “online dating” etiquette to make everybody feel vindicated that they “followed the rules”.

Fuck your rules.

Your rules end up with a date with someone who you don’t like the smell of, has bad breath, a voice of a tiny rodent, and a horrible sense of self. And guess what? They just happened to be an amazing writer. Those twitter sized bite size faux texts on your dating app sure did save you time…

ONLINE DATING IS AND ALWAYS WILL BE AS SIMPLE AS:

“Finding the other person attractive”

“Seeing if there might be some similar likes/dislikes”

And that IS IT. And hey guess what… that is NO DIFFERENT THAN MEETING IN PUBLIC PLACES. For all of you who think online dating is inorganic, the only inorganic thing is the amount of choice and ease of approach. In person you have to get up the nerve to say hello, online you hit enter and never look back. In person you get to see the person, mind you with more depth perception and being able to compare them to yourself and see a 3D version of them, but the attraction is what makes you want to say hi, not their amazing ability for “sarcasm”. Shit an in person meet might not even get to number 2. It might just be getting the number and setting up a time to meet, AGAIN… IN PERSON…

You HAVE to meet, there are too many mitigating circumstances that go into dating and meeting someone for you to be able to make an educated decision or even know anything about the other person without it. But if you want to harp on the fact that X amount of messages were or weren’t sent, you want to go back to texting nothing of consequence, and making snap judgement without knowing a damn thing about the person, go ahead, but please for fucks sake stop swiping right on me.

Have you ever fucked? I have. But have you ever made love without cringing at the thought of some love infused, inflated hallmark bullshit moment of clarity, unobtainable in a society filled with euphemisms and broken promises of the next best thing, let alone even be able to mouth the words “make love” without throwing up in ones mouth slightly, while giggling? I have.

I laid in a bed and rested my arms on the pillow beside her head. My chest lightly resting on hers, my elbows folded and arms arms by her ears, hands around her head. My position not indicative of any motion other than perhaps a small tilt back and forth. Yet even after years of numbing internet porn and personal fetishes and kinks, I will never forget what it felt like… to not care about the foreplay, the outfit, the music, or the right motion for pleasing myself or her because in that moment, in that locked moment both physically and emotionally, with all the images I could have brought to mind or ability to ravish her body with my eyes, me leaning over her in what can only be described as the most classical girl/boy position, I met her for the first time all over again.

This was not the first time we had sex. It was by far not the last, but it was certainly the most memorable and amazing sex I ever experienced. It all happened in the eyes. We were locked so close to one another, able to kiss softly where I could lift my head just enough to make out her face in a photographic depth of field blur causing the sides of her face to melt into the bed sheets and her eyes to pierce mine. As if I were 40 feet away but the distance causing the perfect Bokah effect of our faces. I looked into her eyes and her into mine. The lights were on dimly, we didn’t close our eyes to match expectations or fears of not doing it by the book. Yet we were in an almost missionary position that could bring yawns to most couples faces if asked in passing how they like to fuck in passing on the street… an Elizabethan approach on love making these days, but because of it’s traditional positioning, the man on top, the girl underneath him, the weight being equally distributed by some defying physics, and the feeling of safety that came from the cocoon we created around each other, and our eyes became the dialogue. We stared at each other and I stayed inside her and her around me. We moved slightly but each time her eyes kept my gaze, every moment I knew she wasn’t going to look away, I became more aroused and more in love. My arms were around her causing an acoustical anomaly echoing every sound in this small world we had created, that could drown out the worst day, leaning in to kiss her neck and hearing my lips on her skin and her breath in my ear or her moan through the vibration of my lips…

She didn’t need a Disney princess and I didn’t need a modern day porn star. We just needed to know one anthers inflections of the eyes. And we spoke to one another with every single movement. We were pressed up against each other and our bodies did what came naturally, but our eyes gave us comfort, they gave us hope, they gave us a sense of calm. We would kiss, eyes wide open and then just rest on each other’s foreheads and stare. No motion changing the angle, no outside influence telling us what to do. We guided one another with our eyes and it became apparently clear in that moment what it truly meant to love someone and share it intimately.

I don’t believe in love at first site, I believe in attraction, pheromones, compatibility, likes, dislikes… In a world where we meet someone way before we “meet them” there are so many factors we can’t control: will we like their smell? Will we like their voice? Will our bodies fit in relation to one another? Personality and music taste is a characteristic not a predetermined part of us. We have so little control over so many of the big pieces of the dating puzzle, but when those pieces line up and we get to that moment where we are exposed and naked laying together, starring into each other’s eyes, allowing our breath in our chests to move our bodies, letting nature take over, if there is love, it is the most exotic, sensual love you can ever feel.

I can only hope everyone gets to that date or moment like I did. Mine didn’t last forever but I will never forget it and I will always remember it as if it is a bookmark of a chapter in a book I really must read again when I finally find the right book that is worth getting to the metaphorical end.

For now that book lays on my shelf and I eagerly await when I can read again but with all the experience and life under my belt to make the words new, the interpretations different, and the sensations unique to the person I say I love you too… again, but willingly, openly, and accepting of. I will allow my heart to break until I have to buy another book shelf to put the these moments on, if that means, eventually, I never have to read again.

I have been in my fair share of breakups. I was recently talking with someone very close to me and she explained her recent breakup. It resonated with me. She told me how she felt as though she were ready for it, but regardless she sat there and cried. She even asked if she could have a moment to just sit and cry before leaving to go to work. The guy said, yes take all the time you need. This causing more tears to roll from her eyes. His kindness was comforting but felt dissociated and wrong because they were no longer a couple now.

She said to him, “I really do care about you and understand this and am going to be OK with it..” But what she asked next hit home, “I just need to know, as you seem really composed, do you care about this at all? Do you, did you care about me?”

That stone cold demeanor I am all too familiar with, because I have done it. When I have broken up with someone, I have put a lot of thought into it and have convinced myself as to why I have to make the hard step to ending the relationship, why I have to step away from the comfort, or hardship. This isn’t something I just came up with the night before but something I have been going over in my head for weeks at a time. So when it comes to the actual day when I say it, it feels disconnected because I am sitting there with multiple aspects of my mind guiding me:

-The need to make sure they understand we just didn’t have that connection to work and to not blame anyone for us not being compatible.

-The want to make sure that this person that I just spent a significant portion of my life with understands I am there for them at that moment in time.

-And finally the organization of the words I am going to use to do it.

It is like being in a defensive mode, ready for anything at any moment and preparing for it. It is almost as if because I have so many things going on in my head, my normal bubbly, excitable self, becomes for a lack of a better word, monotonous and business like. My face gets emotionless, my eyes blank hardly blinking, my body calm and lifeless. I already disconnected from the relationship maybe minutes or hours before I make the words come to my lips, “I think we should breakup”.

It is to prepare for every situation possible, something I have as a defense mechanism in my own body and mind due to the way I was raised and the childhood I had both at home and socially. I constantly tried to gauge those around me who were closed off or accepting of me, being on complete defense at all times, to prepare for what might be said, and if it was said, how I would diffuse it or recoil and hide.

This is not the healthiest way to live and I suppose one of the reasons my relationships haven’t done so well in the past, but it is also why I am in need of someone very sensitive to the fact that I don’t just want to know what is on their mind, but I need to know what is on their mind for the first few months, years etc, just so that I can fully trust them to not throw in a wrench like my family used to or my “friends” did. (I was not the popular kid, let’s just leave it at that) And even more so I can get out of my head, analyzing every breath, sigh, or micro expression, and just be there with them. So I don’t have to have my mind going on so many different scenarios every millisecond that I get to breath and be with them.

So when I heard my friend tell me about what had happened, I told her the truth, people like me, and often men in general have a different reaction to breakups, especially if they are the one instigating it. Men and myself tend to get through the initial breakup with what seems like ease and an emotionless display, meanwhile women usually let the hurt and struggle of the breakup to the front immediately. But ask anyone like me, ask them, “What happens a month or 2 down the road after the breakup?” We cry. We cry or we feel the loss. What takes women seconds to do, us men take a serious mental break before we truly feel it. And trust me we feel it. We don’t skip that part, we just go on a mini brain vacation prior. But when we get our first sensory memory of you and it brings back the comfort or love we had with each other, we let it out. And then we take a slightly longer time to recover. I feel as though women rebound for the first month whereas men are a little more dangerous. We could feel OK right away and even date again right away, but when we get that sting a month or so later, we can self destruct whatever we just built.

So women, yes we feel, but we are in a “stance” during the breakup. We are protecting either ourselves, you, or validating it in a different way. Healthy or not, there is a lot of truth here.

“Fun” fact most breakups happen around holidays, birthdays, and important moments in life when we would want it least, not because it is being insensitive but because these moments make us reflect on what we can invest emotionally and even monetarily in our significant other, which can often reveal a lot about how we actually feel.

Oh wow throw back Thursday. My first date application I made awhile back. The girl in question said she was very busy and it would take a whole lot for her to have time to go on a date… Do me being me I made her this. I got the date and she is to this day one of my closest friends.

…we often prioritize our accomplishments over the simple accomplishment of bringing a smile into someone’s life, being there for someone, or unconditionally loving. It is so important in a world that grows up on disneys ideal love and finding that prince or princess that we put a little more effort into our interactions as we would for that promotion or next client. This leads me into why love is not enough.

Every one of my last relationships has ended because “love” was enough for them. “Love” is the beginning of opening up the rest of your life. It lifts the weight of trying to find the unattainable life goal so you can do other things magical with the love, the person you have found, and your life in general.

So why stay in a relationship defined by hopelessness, I am not a hopeless romantic, I am hopeful. Should you be “waiting” for the perfect moment? Is it like where you love your job but don’t know if it is where you want to be till the end, so you stick it out waiting to see what will happen in a few years time that may push you closer, further, or to a similar path? So should you be waiting or should you be fixing, actively, or is the waiting, part of the fixing. There is no black and white to any of this shit. It is what works for you or what pushes your brain to the edge of insanity allowing you to evolve to the place you need to be.

To put it in metaphor, I’d say that oftentimes paths will cross, as Fate would have it, and that would be Instant Love; however, in order to keep this instant love, you must apply that conscious effort to pursue… because when paths cross, they will naturally meet at one point, the middle of an X {a cross- those physical, chemical, mental changes}, and then start going the opposite way, as is natural with growing and life changing. This is where the effort to pursue Love comes in… where people will take the time, effort, and energy to pave a new road together. Regardless of where those roads of Fate may lead. And the strength of that crossing point will help to determine if it will last or it will grow apart. Because we are on different timelines, but if when we meet the intersection was strong enough, it can bind us together even as time changes who we will be.

“ Relationships don’t work they way they do on television and in the movies. Will they? Won’t they? And then they finally do, and they’re happy forever. Gimme a break. Nine out of ten of them end because they weren’t right for each other to begin with, and half of the ones who get married get divorced anyway, and I’m telling you right now, through all this stuff I have not become a cynic. I haven’t. Yes, I do happen to believe that love is mainly about pushing chocolate covered candies and, y’know, in some cultures, a chicken. You can call me a sucker, I don’t care, because I do believe in it. Bottom line: it’s couples who are truly right for each other wade through the same crap as everybody else, but the big difference is they don’t let it take them down. One of those two people will stand up and fight for that relationship every time. If it’s right, and they’re real lucky, one of them will say something.”

There are two faces to every girl. The face you see when you come home from work, the face you see when you are covered in daily dirt, even the face you see when you cry. That is face one, the one. Now there is face two the one where you are so close. You are face to face, all blemishes to see, yet all I look for and hope you see the same in me, is to see a sparkle in your eye. I want to find that sparkle and have it last forever, I want to find that sparkle, not make it an endeavor, by this I don’t want the games to play, some drama here or there, is fun but maybe just today and tomorrow, and then a day off, sure it can be exciting I won’t deny that feat. The simple touch and connection I want to find, seemingly something you can find. So in this second face you and me, we will kiss and it will last, last and last, just because kissing is amazing to me, and in that second face to kiss with an eternity going by. The longer the better in my eyes. Sometimes to be slick the writer will say it lasted for the perfect moment, but want the moment to be more than just a moment, I want it to be the rest of my life.

Holidays, oh holidays. I always wish I had someone to bring home to Mom and Dad to share with them. I always feel as though it would just be that much more fun to have to decide where and when we will visit the different families and how we will balance the need to be with each other and the need to see our families. Knowing at the end of the day, we will find that solace in each other, regardless of the craziness we are about to embark on through the long car rides during the day, which in turn is time we would spend with each other. The pre-planning which usually means we are committed to each other. Planning anything is advance is usually a no no for non relationships because it gives off the impression of wanting more than what is there. But I guess I just like to think in advance this season more than the rest of the year because I know that due to my broken up family and distance between us I will have to do it with myself so I am used to it. This makes me automatically start to do it with someone I am interested in.

I also look at it by a climate thing too. The cold weather, a fireplace, some cheese and wine. Just sitting in warm pajamas and holding each other. Not necessarily alone, maybe my sisters are there chatting with us, or perhaps we are just playing with my family dog. Maybe sneaking off to bed early or watching as others go to sleep around us. But the feeling I get when I am home with the heat on and the lights a certain brightness and the tree sparkling. That feeling is one I want to share.

When things get overwhelming like holidays usually do with family, we can disappear to sneak that cigarette on the porch freezing our asses off together, but that unity of thought where we BOTH need to get away and we want to do it together. That always seems nice to me.

Holidays automatically bring the idea of love to the forefront whether it be there or not, wanted or not. But I don’t think it is about love, I think it is about human interaction. About the feelings that accompany us when we think of spending time with Family or friends, so obviously those we are interested in pop to the front of the list. This can play out for or against new relationships because of the pressures you may feel to HAVE to do any of the above, when I find through talking it out, it can be a much simpler equation that can always equal out to just meaning it is a holiday and working within its confines in needed and not something to even blink twice about, we all feel the stress.

I have always been one of those Italian boys who will introduce someone I meet to my family the day we meet if they are around. I don’t look at “meeting the family” as a big event but part of who I am and part of me I want to share. Although I must say, living a couple thousand miles away definitely does not help with it NOT being a big to do.

Oh and not to mention the FOOD. I want to share the food my family makes with EVERYONE I care about. Because it is probably some of the best food in the world and everyone should have chance to partake in it!

My Dads side is always a little more laid back on holidays, kind of the more classical cheese and wine feel and my Mom’s side is usually the more classical Italian “pranz”(get together) where the entire family comes, sings, yells, screams, gets to decibels that will break your ear drums, but we are all screaming because it has been a long time since we all sat in the same room and were able to share what was on our mind or reminisce about our great grandfathers mothers fathers etc. I think the stories are amazing, the way that the family was back before my time. The way the interactions were. It was, to me, like something out of an old black and white movie. But the one quality I always valued about my Italian family was the love they shared with each other. It was always people being kind, the men being gentlemen, the ladies slaving over the food with the men eating it as they hit their hands. The kids jumping around or playing in the corner preparing a dance recital or song to sing or playing dress up.

Anyway, all of this is part of who I am, this is what I saw growing up, through home movies or experience, and I always think how nice it would be to have someone that was interested enough in me and I in them that we would want to try to be a part of such a long history of stuff impossible to catch up on. Just trying to be there and not panicking from the loud intense moments or panicking and knowing it is OK.

So for me holidays alone do not make me lonely, just hopeful that I will be able to find someone eventually so they can share that with me while every single family member is around.

I want to know their favorite Christmas book so I can have it waiting to read to them before we go to sleep in the unfamiliar pull out bed in the guest room. I want to bring them down to open presents with me on Christmas and have them smell the coffee and taste the pancakes my dad makes and watch me and my sister be completely goofy once she has had her coffee. I want them to see the similarities between me and my dad(he is basically what I will look like in 30 years), and the many morals and creativity I have gotten from my mother. I want them to also see the talents my family has as they sit around the piano and sing, or sit and talk and joke(I want them to see my Uncle make the most ridiculous jokes), or just understand the love we all have for each other when we sit and watch a movie. The things holidays sometimes force you to do with your Family. I mean watching me and my sister curse to rile up my Mom is fun as hell, and watching us both freak out from random triggers unknown to us and needing to go lay down or get away for a minute.

I suppose holidays force you to see if someone wants to see who YOU are. It forces your significant other to be there and participate in your life. Because in the end family is the most important thing to all of us and I think many of us want to see how they interact with our families in the most extreme situations such as holidays force upon you. Not as a test but just as a way to get to know them and for them to get to know you better. Because honestly meeting them on a random Friday works too, holidays just give it a different atmosphere. There is no hiding who you have been in front of your family.

There is something strong that goes along with being part of the Italian Catholic family. Guilt and Family, oh and food. So while I may not be the definition of this, I like to at least share the parts I love the most about it, and have that hand to hold when I myself start to freak out from the pressures the holidays can bring.

Holidays, oh Holidays… Sometimes I guess I just want to cap them off with that New Year’s kiss, but not just a kiss, but something that you remember and look forward to at midnight. Not because it is different than the other kisses but because it is something deemed special by whatever book we have all been following. And that is one chapter I don’t mind adhering too. Even if it means a little planning is involved to get both our lives in the same place at that one tiny moment in time, I want to have that moment and I want to shuffle around some plans to make it happen.

Why? Because life is moments. And why deny ourselves moments that could be spectacular. And why not try them out even if they fail. Nothing to lose in the end really. We will be better off either way. Either way we find answers.

I guess touching on my last post a little, I know one thing, the chase is great, but eventually it is nice to know you are chasing something that you can give yourself to in a way you don’t just give a friend. And in return they will give it back. I myself realize I can only play for so long before I start to forget who I am because I am playing not being. I love to live in that moment but I need to live in it as me because otherwise I will second guess everything, and while that isn’t bad to work with someone else, I find it is healthy to be able to re-assess your points of view with people as long as they are willing to do it as well. So when the other is playing around or just being a separated version of themselves you are not actually re-assessing for reasons beyond a simple seconds worth of thought from the other person. I guess holidays have a tendency to make you think about a relationship like you do with your family and if you are willing to make the extra effort to do a simple act of opening the door for them or just as much, invest your time. A sort of unconditional love so to say. But more-so just the comfort of the things that don’t stress you as well, like your old room you left after college or the familiar star on the tree.

Holidays boldly try to make those beginning times happen quicker than you may feel comfortable with. So in that sense Holidays are a pain in the ass, but in the same sense, what’s the difference if Holidays help it along or not. I definitely see both sides here, and don’t have the answer as to yay or nay to either. It is finding someone who is open to a little bit of exploration whenever life decided to bring them together with you that is usually the crux. One person cannot make another change or be something other than what they want, I just wish more people could embrace feelings and regardless of past STUFF can live with it and let themselves open up to figuring out yay or nay without too much pulling of the others hair in-between. I know I can give a whole lot of myself to someone, but I have the reverse wall of others sometimes, mine becomes much more solid and impenetrable the longer I feel like their wall is stopping them from just enjoying those moments where they break character, the moments where the smiles are real, the feelings are overwhelming and indescribable, but instead of sucking back the tears of a moment like we do to save face, we just enjoy the release it brings and ride the wave of whatever the fuck it could mean, good or bad, past, present, or future thoughts.

And now that I have rambled my head off, I leave you with the same disclaimer as usual:

So those are my thoughts. Obviously I have a million more and I wonder if I express everything properly the first time, but that is OK I think, because there is time to re-address things and to talk about it, instead of it being chiseled into stone on, THIS IS HOW IT IS. Consider this my journal entry to myself with intent of someone reading it.

To be in the relationship where you can compare it to a movie, I know I have felt it, experienced it. But to reflect on the basics of a movie, you would assume perhaps this is not the “perfect” relationship at all. Perhaps if your relationship reminds you of a movie it is because you remember it like a movie, only savoring the exact edits. You pass the in between time with cuts. A slideshow of a period of time, pictures a day, with the proper filters on them to give them the film feel. Somehow even though the normal everyday life may be normal and not out of the ordinary, with the right color correction and depth of field you miss the world around anything that may seem perfect. Instead of the feeling of bliss when your relationship turns into a movie, moment after moment, it should be a warning that you are only watching the highlights of a complete picture. I mean that is what a movie is comprised of, the perfect moments, good and bad, dramatized for the passing of time, or the emotion needed for portrayal of character.

A movie is easy to critique or judge, but ever decision every day, takes an open mind. One that can look past the personal opinions buried inside yourself. Yet at the same time it becomes a balance of your own opinion mixed with feelings depending on the sleep you had, what you ate, and that of the people around you. Life itself can often fall into a script like approach, revision after revision. The apprehension to improv alone stands in your way.

So perhaps it is a mastery only befitting of a surrounding in which there are no movies or editing techniques to compare to. A world based on the truth around you, not the truth you use to karmic-ly get through the day. A place where your own perfection cannot exist because the only perfect is the days you spend living. Even this, as I write is influenced by the perceptions put forth around me, prideful or filled with humility.

So tonight I look forward thinking back upon the old relationships and moments in time I had where I thought things felt like a movie and realize, I probably don’t want a movie. If I only have fragments of time with years skipped in between due to the time constraints of an audience, I myself am not giving life itself enough care. My mind will then be unable to mature and reflect as well as see my steps I take ever breath of the day.

I cannot skip chapters in my life, because there is no rewind, but there is definitely a fade to black.

To be in the relationship where you can compare it to a movie, I know I have felt it, experienced it. But to reflect on the basics of a movie, you would assume perhaps this is not the “perfect” relationship at all. Perhaps if your relationship reminds you of a movie it is because you remember it like a movie, only savoring the exact edits. You pass the in between time with cuts. A slideshow of a period of time, pictures a day, with the proper filters on them to give them the film feel. Somehow even though the normal everyday life may be normal and not out of the ordinary, with the right color correction and depth of field you miss the world around anything that may seem perfect. Instead of the feeling of bliss when your relationship turns into a movie, moment after moment, it should be a warning that you are only watching the highlights of a complete picture. I mean that is what a movie is comprised of, the perfect moments, good and bad, dramatized for the passing of time, or the emotion needed for portrayal of character.

A movie is easy to critique or judge, but ever decision every day, takes an open mind. One that can look past the personal opinions buried inside yourself. Yet at the same time it becomes a balance of your own opinion mixed with feelings depending on the sleep you had, what you ate, and that of the people around you. Life itself can often fall into a script like approach, revision after revision. The apprehension to improv alone stands in your way.

So perhaps it is a mastery only befitting of a surrounding in which there are no movies or editing techniques to compare to. A world based on the truth around you, not the truth you use to karmic-ly get through the day. A place where your own perfection cannot exist because the only perfect is the days you spend living. Even this, as I write is influenced by the perceptions put forth around me, prideful or filled with humility.

So tonight I look forward thinking back upon the old relationships and moments in time I had where I thought things felt like a movie and realize, I probably don’t want a movie. If I only have fragments of time with years skipped in between due to the time constraints of an audience, I myself am not giving life itself enough care. My mind will then be unable to mature and reflect as well as see my steps I take ever breath of the day.

I cannot skip chapters in my life, because there is no rewind, but there is definitely a fade to black.

I have always dreamed of different lives. I often wonder which ones I will experience in my time. And perhaps if the world is a constant thing, where your energy is re-used later on even after death, will I experience it at a later date or have I already experienced hence my yearn to feel those lives. This is not to say, my life is boring or I am not enjoying it, it is just the idea that other aspects of all sorts of ways of passing time in life intrigue me. From the simplest to the most complex.

My first dream is to live a life of simple needs. A life where money isn’t more than a way to buy groceries and gas. A life where your relationships and the people around you move you from day to day. Where you live a mile from your mother until she leaves you, you by her side. A place where you find love in love itself. Where the person you are with is just with you and you with them. Because there is nothing else but love and living. Where you wake up early because you can, and you don’t feel time other than when you are called to dinner. Perhaps this is on a farm with nothing but your crops, or perhaps it is the life of an artist just making ends meat in New Orleans, never making it to Hollywood, but going to local jazz clubs and coffee shops, just having what you and your friends say to live by. Sitting and talking, quitting job after job, putting on the name tag, until you leave to go home to your small one room flat to lay in the heat with the one you love. Wearing tattered hand me downs, sipping homemade lemonade to fight off the humid heat. Just think of what New Orleans means to you, or Oklahoma. The basic meaning of these words. This is what I mean.

Perhaps an alteration of that is living the life of someone trying so hard to become what you want to, but stopping yourself because you are so used to this life. Where you push soo hard to become something and the person you are with leaves you when they see you are wasting life away on comforts. Yet in the end, you realize, it wasn’t each others dreams you loved, but the situations this caused, and you find each other for the rest of your lives. Selling cereal. (movie reference)

The second life is that where war overrides the daily cultures, social aspects, and meanings of life. Your course is preplanned and you fight toward a common goal. A place where you hold your best friends hand covered in blood, not thinking about the diseases that can be transmitted but about what you are going to tell his/her significant other. Not a place where you need to keep up with the latest technologies or when the next txt message will come in to tell you what to do that night, but you eat pre-heated food and the meaningless pleasure of a bath is like being a king. You smoke cigarettes without the fear of cancer because you can enjoy everything in life as it is handed to you. For all you know tomorrow will be your time. This looming idea of destruction and death makes you live life a way you never knew possible. Even in war though, would I be content just following orders or would I end up pushing to further my place in that hierarchy as well.

The third is a life of glamour. Living each day without a monetary care in the world, but the pressures of the “scene” on your shoulders constantly. Having the ability to be in the bleeding edge of life, because every door opens freely. Battling the fake and reals of life. Unable to leave your house without others wanting to see what you are doing, flashes blinding all moments in your life. But you must sacrifice being with your old friends and family. You must go where you are needed, not by those who brought you into the world, but the new family called your fans. But how do you balance this life and the life you miss. When can you say, I have done enough, I am content, when do you turn down the next script.The fourth is that of comfort. Finding that thing you are good at, but not being able to push it to the limits or finding that break to be “popular”. Perhapsyou become the self loathing teacher of your passion, the one who never made it. Or perhaps a drone in a cubicle, doing your work at top notch because it all makes sense, and you are always ahead of the curve.

The fifth is the life where you forget yourself. And you live in this life because it brings you the comforts of money, relaxation, stress, and keeping up with the Benjamins next door. You go through the motions of life because your job allows you to.

Or perhaps the last would be just trying ever one of your passions out until you have exhausted all options not really being content or upset. But in a constant motion.

Ultimately, I would like to be able to find someone in my life, who can share these pieces of all lives together. Where you are able to live your dreams, but after you feel content you can settle down in love. You can have a mattress on the floor of an empty house. You can paint the walls together, playfully splashing it over your loved one, turning into a heated passionate moment on that mattress, the one piece of the house that won’t change. Growing together eventually raising a child to grow in your lives with you. I think most importantly is the idea of the photographer living with the model/makeup artist. The lives of those who love each other should feel like a flowing river. Mixing the dirt and sand from the coast, but always ending up in that river. Eventually leading into a circular lake, where the world now begins to fall behind and fills your bed of water without you having to put the efforts of say a first date. Like the idea of my Grandmother using the internet. When it finally got to her, she didn’t need to master it, but it was cool. Living with someone who you look forward to looking at their splashes of paint on the wall, or their work spread all over the bedroom. For me, the artistic approach to life. I want someone who loves the arts equally. All aspects. Better than me in some kinds and me them. This wouldn’t cause friction but pride for their abilities. I have always dreamed of someone who was good at the “Hollywood flat or Soho” feel of life, and it reflected their record player and style. Edgy but with the want and yearn for living life calmer than those who have to go and DO just to feel alive. The appreciation for the quick city as well as the class of the 50’s.

Being able to grow together like this, being able to live your passions and have that other person see you grow and you them, as you both make your lives what you want. Or perhaps you fail or she fails, but either way you have experienced and tried, and have each other to love, and have the painted walls, which your hands bled over as the groundwork for your lives forever.

I know this is not the most articulate piece of writing I have ever written, but I want to get the thoughts out. Just some raw ideas. Perhaps I will revisit this at a later date and pretty it up.

I wonder if one day I will meet that person with smooth pale skin, eyes as blue as 20 steps deeper than man can journey down into the sea. (This is just an example for those red heads out there that think I am creepy, the movie I just saw had someone in it that reminded me of this look which has always had a place in my heart.) I wonder if regardless of what stages in life we are at, if eventually we will meet in the middle. Like the life of Benjamin Button.(as contrived as that movie was, event eh notebook held more water) The man who lived his life from old to young, and met his soul mate when she was in the middle of her life, and for that moment, regardless of the direction both lives are going, that fleeting moment will be perfect, and it will line up. And from that point on, as she grows older and he gets younger, they are destined to live in each other’s lives, no matter what the circumstances. He will always be there for her and she will hold his hand as he forgets to walk. And those fleeting moments they will know they had love.

When that other person in my life passes away or I pass away, I want to know that I have loved, that she was my soulmate and I will never yearn for anything else. My friends will not push me out to meet someone else because they know I only needed that time with her. And now that part of my life, that chapter in my life, is complete. When I see a movie where someone has found true love and they are a young age when one dies, it is hard for me to fathom how they could ever have someone else. If you find perfection, how can you top an already impossible feat. Perfection does not exist, only times in peoples lives lining up.

So you are having a bad day and mine was great, we are on a different time line in life for the moment. My day flew by, yours at a crawl. I hope there will be strength enough to be able to sprint to catch up to each other, or perhaps take a moment to smell the day, and wait for the other. The place where people are in their lives is always scary, because when you live in such a fast paced world where you want to be a part of a big city or fast moving industry, it can be a matter of seconds to lose that chance to see what could have been.

I guess what I am trying to say is there is something intriguing about living like a gypsy, but not unless you have someone with you who you love already, because lets be honest, in real life, gypsies don’t have dental insurance and Hollywood makeup artists.

(btw if ur tagged it is because I enjoy your feedback, but don’t feel obligated.)

(also normal disclaimer: I just feel the need to get thoughts written out sometimes, most the time these are not MEANT for direct reading by other people, or with that intention, they are written for me to go back to later when I wonder why. I mean it is very true that we all see our stories and lives differently than someone not in our head to see the images that go with the words.)

I have always dreamed of different lives. I often wonder which ones I will experience in my time. And perhaps if the world is a constant thing, where your energy is re-used later on even after death, will I experience it at a later date or have I already experienced hence my yearn to feel those lives. This is not to say, my life is boring or I am not enjoying it, it is just the idea that other aspects of all sorts of ways of passing time in life intrigue me. From the simplest to the most complex.

My first dream is to live a life of simple needs. A life where money isn’t more than a way to buy groceries and gas. A life where your relationships and the people around you move you from day to day. Where you live a mile from your mother until she leaves you, you by her side. A place where you find love in love itself. Where the person you are with is just with you and you with them. Because there is nothing else but love and living. Where you wake up early because you can, and you don’t feel time other than when you are called to dinner. Perhaps this is on a farm with nothing but your crops, or perhaps it is the life of an artist just making ends meat in New Orleans, never making it to Hollywood, but going to local jazz clubs and coffee shops, just having what you and your friends say to live by. Sitting and talking, quitting job after job, putting on the name tag, until you leave to go home to your small one room flat to lay in the heat with the one you love. Wearing tattered hand me downs, sipping homemade lemonade to fight off the humid heat. Just think of what New Orleans means to you, or Oklahoma. The basic meaning of these words. This is what I mean.

Perhaps an alteration of that is living the life of someone trying so hard to become what you want to, but stopping yourself because you are so used to this life. Where you push soo hard to become something and the person you are with leaves you when they see you are wasting life away on comforts. Yet in the end, you realize, it wasn’t each others dreams you loved, but the situations this caused, and you find each other for the rest of your lives. Selling cereal. (movie reference)

The second life is that where war overrides the daily cultures, social aspects, and meanings of life. Your course is preplanned and you fight toward a common goal. A place where you hold your best friends hand covered in blood, not thinking about the diseases that can be transmitted but about what you are going to tell his/her significant other. Not a place where you need to keep up with the latest technologies or when the next txt message will come in to tell you what to do that night, but you eat pre-heated food and the meaningless pleasure of a bath is like being a king. You smoke cigarettes without the fear of cancer because you can enjoy everything in life as it is handed to you. For all you know tomorrow will be your time. This looming idea of destruction and death makes you live life a way you never knew possible. Even in war though, would I be content just following orders or would I end up pushing to further my place in that hierarchy as well.

The third is a life of glamour. Living each day without a monetary care in the world, but the pressures of the “scene” on your shoulders constantly. Having the ability to be in the bleeding edge of life, because every door opens freely. Battling the fake and reals of life. Unable to leave your house without others wanting to see what you are doing, flashes blinding all moments in your life. But you must sacrifice being with your old friends and family. You must go where you are needed, not by those who brought you into the world, but the new family called your fans. But how do you balance this life and the life you miss. When can you say, I have done enough, I am content, when do you turn down the next script.The fourth is that of comfort. Finding that thing you are good at, but not being able to push it to the limits or finding that break to be “popular”. Perhapsyou become the self loathing teacher of your passion, the one who never made it. Or perhaps a drone in a cubicle, doing your work at top notch because it all makes sense, and you are always ahead of the curve.

The fifth is the life where you forget yourself. And you live in this life because it brings you the comforts of money, relaxation, stress, and keeping up with the Benjamins next door. You go through the motions of life because your job allows you to.

Or perhaps the last would be just trying ever one of your passions out until you have exhausted all options not really being content or upset. But in a constant motion.

Ultimately, I would like to be able to find someone in my life, who can share these pieces of all lives together. Where you are able to live your dreams, but after you feel content you can settle down in love. You can have a mattress on the floor of an empty house. You can paint the walls together, playfully splashing it over your loved one, turning into a heated passionate moment on that mattress, the one piece of the house that won’t change. Growing together eventually raising a child to grow in your lives with you. I think most importantly is the idea of the photographer living with the model/makeup artist. The lives of those who love each other should feel like a flowing river. Mixing the dirt and sand from the coast, but always ending up in that river. Eventually leading into a circular lake, where the world now begins to fall behind and fills your bed of water without you having to put the efforts of say a first date. Like the idea of my Grandmother using the internet. When it finally got to her, she didn’t need to master it, but it was cool. Living with someone who you look forward to looking at their splashes of paint on the wall, or their work spread all over the bedroom. For me, the artistic approach to life. I want someone who loves the arts equally. All aspects. Better than me in some kinds and me them. This wouldn’t cause friction but pride for their abilities. I have always dreamed of someone who was good at the “Hollywood flat or Soho” feel of life, and it reflected their record player and style. Edgy but with the want and yearn for living life calmer than those who have to go and DO just to feel alive. The appreciation for the quick city as well as the class of the 50’s.

Being able to grow together like this, being able to live your passions and have that other person see you grow and you them, as you both make your lives what you want. Or perhaps you fail or she fails, but either way you have experienced and tried, and have each other to love, and have the painted walls, which your hands bled over as the groundwork for your lives forever.

I know this is not the most articulate piece of writing I have ever written, but I want to get the thoughts out. Just some raw ideas. Perhaps I will revisit this at a later date and pretty it up.

I wonder if one day I will meet that person with smooth pale skin, eyes as blue as 20 steps deeper than man can journey down into the sea. (This is just an example for those red heads out there that think I am creepy, the movie I just saw had someone in it that reminded me of this look which has always had a place in my heart.) I wonder if regardless of what stages in life we are at, if eventually we will meet in the middle. Like the life of Benjamin Button.(as contrived as that movie was, event eh notebook held more water) The man who lived his life from old to young, and met his soul mate when she was in the middle of her life, and for that moment, regardless of the direction both lives are going, that fleeting moment will be perfect, and it will line up. And from that point on, as she grows older and he gets younger, they are destined to live in each other’s lives, no matter what the circumstances. He will always be there for her and she will hold his hand as he forgets to walk. And those fleeting moments they will know they had love.

When that other person in my life passes away or I pass away, I want to know that I have loved, that she was my soulmate and I will never yearn for anything else. My friends will not push me out to meet someone else because they know I only needed that time with her. And now that part of my life, that chapter in my life, is complete. When I see a movie where someone has found true love and they are a young age when one dies, it is hard for me to fathom how they could ever have someone else. If you find perfection, how can you top an already impossible feat. Perfection does not exist, only times in peoples lives lining up.

So you are having a bad day and mine was great, we are on a different time line in life for the moment. My day flew by, yours at a crawl. I hope there will be strength enough to be able to sprint to catch up to each other, or perhaps take a moment to smell the day, and wait for the other. The place where people are in their lives is always scary, because when you live in such a fast paced world where you want to be a part of a big city or fast moving industry, it can be a matter of seconds to lose that chance to see what could have been.

I guess what I am trying to say is there is something intriguing about living like a gypsy, but not unless you have someone with you who you love already, because lets be honest, in real life, gypsies don’t have dental insurance and Hollywood makeup artists.

(btw if ur tagged it is because I enjoy your feedback, but don’t feel obligated.)

(also normal disclaimer: I just feel the need to get thoughts written out sometimes, most the time these are not MEANT for direct reading by other people, or with that intention, they are written for me to go back to later when I wonder why. I mean it is very true that we all see our stories and lives differently than someone not in our head to see the images that go with the words.)

Or perhaps better put what would I describe the feeling I yearn for from another in my life?

I suppose my ears could tell you through the voice of a beautiful song. The way the tone resonates through my heart and body. The tremble the sound carries to my ear drums that shake my body and cause my hairs to stand on end. The sound filling your whole body, unable to make out the words, but just register the feeling it causes you.

Perhaps my mind could think for you through the lack of struggling with signs, or how it could be, or how it might be, but how it is.
I suppose I have always thought of finding that special person as something special above itself. Not that it would be grandiose or a perfect definition of textbook love, far from it.

I guess it would be an equilibrium of ease and comfort, mixed with the complications that are brought to us every day in our lives. From the simple upset stomach from some bad food, or perhaps the unINTENTIONAL upset stomach from too much junk food, to the simplistic beauty one can see in another, perhaps through an indie film perspective, in which you can take it shot by shot and apply a simple color wash to the filter of the day. The day transformed into a de-saturated image of how it actually is, but the lack of color actually gives it the feeling of fall’s crisp air, and the beautiful colors of the leaves falling off trees around you as you try to capture the moment in your mind forever because you know you only have so much time in your day to stand and stare at the beauty of nature shedding its prior season.

Being able to look into the eyes of that person next to you, be it near on a pillow next to you or far across a table during dinner, and knowing, you both are familiar with the idea of investing time and effort into one another without needing to surround the drama of the world around your visions sheltering your senses from what could be great, or could just be friendship.

The simplest of smiles that can be brought to your day by the other person remembering something small that you mentioned earlier in the week. Just seeing an effort that they too care and are thinking of you in the empty space, usually filled with our day to day lives, between conversation. A feeling of care. The feeling one would get in highschool usually after you were titled “boyfriend and girlfriend”. The attached stigma of those words broke down many more walls and caused hugs to become a daily occurrence and kissing to be part of your hello and not a question per date. But regardless of statements, titles, words in general, it is a feeling one would think could be plain and overwhelming.

Within the strengths and passions of each day, lived by both parties, there is the understanding that the idea of a simple life and happiness are not defined by where you are or your days final outcome, but that the simple life is a state of mind and if shared within that ideal, together both can live past sarcasm, jokes, and hiccups that often cause a bit of strife. But somehow the person next to you inspires your passion and can make a hallmark card moment make sense, not because you read it, but you realize you can now say it without the card.

The simple ability to say what comes to your mind and if you change it later, being able to correct it, without the scare of having chosen the wrong answer first. We all need that second moment to rethink what we say, and sometimes we agree and sometimes we wish to say it again or in 50 different ways to express how we really feel.

The time-lines of two people often have to align for you to get the relationship to even begin, it is when those time-lines go out of sync(which WILL happen, because we all have changes, physically, chemically, and mentally as we progress through life) when we really see how it works with the other person. How we work together then is when our “essence of love” truly shines.

When we meet a person, even if it is the FIRST time, or we see a picture of them, or hear their voice on the phone, or understand one of their opinions, I believe, even though I can only speak for myself, we picture them in every situation that defines a family, a life together, coming home to them, how they will be with possible children, waking up next to them, having to sleep next to them every night and not having your OWN bed. I believe this almost primordial instinct is natural and we should not be afraid because of stigmas against it to think about it or even discuss it, but not to lay it out step by step, or think that we are pushing too far into the future with these thoughts, but just consider it part of that first impression, and just take it day by day. It will become more obvious as time goes on, and time is really the only thing that can really shine this brightly. So think it but understand we all have more than just a few thoughts in our head at once, and while these may sound huge, they are just a beginning of a transformation of the mind to looking at the other person as a possible part of your life.

I believe instincts are very important to be followed and usually followed right away. I suppose not being afraid and thinking of a relationship as something you jump head into to see if it works because god knows how long we have to just BE, so why not find out if you are someone I want to even kiss in the first place, instead of putting the kiss before hand in order to know you. Then either take the small emotional hit if it doesn’t work out and be friends or not, or perhaps something more will appear.

I cannot say my past relationships have not been a deciding factor in how I react to the next one. But to treat the next person as just that, a different person, someone who isn’t another but them, and to respect what it is THEY are. To know there are similarities with everyone, but everyone is UNIQUE. This is true with everything that “affects” us in life, so like the song that fills your head with sweet sounds giving you that puppy love feeling, unable to hear the words of the actual song, let it help you, let it guide you through that beginning blindness and find the picture you are looking for. And perhaps you will walk into the gallery seeing something that truly is something you would pay a ridiculous amount of money just to have it hanging in your house, or kindly thank the receptionist and walk out of the gallery, not afraid to explore the hidden meaning in all the other art being offered around you.

ADDITION:

I believe working on love as a conscious effort is just as important as “the instant” love, which is truly something I cannot say I know much about. I mean if we can work on bettering ourselves, or even work at a job we love, why can’t we also work on love. Isn’t Love Money Fame and Happiness some of the top things people want? So We work towards all the others, why not love too, it is just as important.

So those are my thoughts. Obviously I have a million more and I wonder if I express everything properly the first time, but that is OK I think, because there is time to re-address things and to talk about it, instead of it being chiseled into stone on, THIS IS HOW IT IS. Consider this my journal entry to myself with intent of someone reading it.

Why is it that we find it necessary to carry on multiple relationships rather than taking our time with one. If you are interested in a person, then perhaps you should take the time from your life to enjoy that moment. Why multi task a pleasure filled activity such as human connection. While I understand the American attitude of productivity, I lose it with the idea that life can only give you so many apples at a time. What? Am I crazy? That made no sense. I should be multi tasking more then, taking on 4-10 girls or boys at a time to make sure the clock will continue to tick before I find out I am alone.

That fear is the drive that makes us take those apples and quickly shine them on our shirt, then take a bite. No time to taste, no time to inspect each side, no time to hear the noise as your teeth sink into the tough outer skin and into the soft juicy center, even crunching through the seeds which could give birth to another. Another life, another turn, another moment, another yearn. Your clock has already stopped you are just going to fast to hear the ticking stop. A simple rhyme to make the point, but this whole rant is still a bit disjoint.

Now what if you were to take that apple and eat every bite, but instead of licking your lips and be satisfied with the hunger you have filled… Take a moment, find the seeds, plant them outside, water them until they can blossom. Now as you watch it grow you can decide, “I think I am in the mood for an orange now”, or perhaps now that you can watch this small seed grow into the bright lustrous apple, shinning brightly on the outside and sweetly fragile on the inside, there is no need to change your taste. Some think you must taste it all to fulfill a lifetime, but is it realistic to acquire every taste only to find out the first was the best?

So if you mix a strawberry with a banana, you will taste the strawberry not he banana. If you mix a lemon with a lime you will not know which is sour and which is sweet. So all food aside, why not, instead of rushing to perfection, take a blind, exciting leap. But without your eyes shut, and with sturdy ground ahead, because you know, if the taste is not to your palette, you can always find another treat. Food may rot, and life grow old, but happiness is forever, don’t let go.

Why do we always have this inclination to go back with our ex’s. Is there something hardcoded into our brains to bring on the extra hurt? I mean don’t we get enough of that shit just on a daily basis from simpler things? We have to subject ourselves to our ex’s because our brains can’t retain the reasons and rationality to why we left in the first place. We seem to all suffer from short-term memory when it comes to this subject. I mean yes there is also the idea that it worked at one point so there will be some satisfaction for us, or the possibility that things have changed, but what do we usually break up over; the core of a person, not their daily quirks that are always going to change over time. So in essence we embark on something that is going to hurt one or both people again just to feel that relationships moments. Be it the comfort of “knowing each other” or the acceptance of flaws or perhaps the movie like atmosphere of all the bits pieced together.

I mean it is almost like being the person who will only tell you the truth while drunk. But once the buzz wears off it is ok to go back on everything you said, regardless of it being THE TRUTH. Just in reverse, for this case… you already know the truth when sober but go into a drunken state where you forget all the shit that makes you and that person not work and decide hmm I need to go back to the ex.

A relationship that is “on and off” just seems like something that is destined to fail.We have a strange tendency to forget the reasons why a relationship failed in the past. Maybe the moment was so intense for us at the time, the minute it is over, we look back and wonder if we did the right thing. Because all of a sudden the intensity can never be the same and all we can remember are snippets. And usually we remember the best things of those or the places we leave, without the true ability to really comprehend what we didn’t enjoy. So imagine that in an “on and off” relationship, the memories are gonna be all fucked up.

As we age I believe there is only so much pain we are willing to subject ourselves to when it comes to relationships and on and off just doesn’t fly anymore. Not to say it doesn’t happen, but I think you realize it isn’t worth it as you get down the line more and would rather find happiness with yourself alone or with the RIGHT person than to just be content or settle.

Although I also see where this can be the opposite effect, and someone as they age wants to settle rather than be alone, which also has fail written all over it.

I wish there was a study of divorces in America vs overseas. And then compare that to the legit happy couples. Just to see if the cultural difference changes it.

But we all play the ex game. And I just don’t know why we subject ourselves to it. Not to mention the new separation from true communication with social sites, texting, and email, really makes it easier to flirt and mind fuck those who used to be in our lives, be it a txt after a year of not talking saying hi, or a post on their facebook wall, it is our subconscious or even main conscious just playing the ex game.

So what phone numbers do you have in your phone that you keep although you should probably delete them

About Me

My name is Tristan and I am a photographer/director and hopeful romantic. I am here sharing my writing, a journal entry to myself with the intent of others reading it. I talk in a very open stream of consciousness. Feel free to get lost.